More protest calls in Iran after confusion over morality police revocation

Tehran, Dec 5 (EFE).- Activists Monday called for more protests over the next three days after the government made conflicting statements on disbanding the dreaded morality police that enforces the Islamic dress code in Iran.

Tehran Youth, an underground protest organizing group that has been issuing calls for demonstrations nationwide, urged the Iranians to mobilize and demonstrate.

“Unity is one of the factors for victory,” the group said on social media.

Tehran Youth and several other similar groups called for a labor strike on Monday and demonstrations in the neighborhoods on Tuesday and a gathering in the central Azadi (freedom) square on Wednesday.

Nationwide protests sparked by the alleged death in detention of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in Tehran on Sep.16 have rocked Iran for months now.

Amini was arrested by the morality police on Sep.13 allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

More than 400 people have died in the almost three months of protests.

The security forces have arrested at least 2,000 for their inciting and participating in demonstrations.

Six of them have been sentenced to death.

The unrest has evolved into demands calling for the end of the Islamic republic founded by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

The new call for protests came a day after Attorney General Mohamad Jafar Montazeri purportedly said that the morality police would be abolished.

Hours later, official media said his statement was misinterpreted and the feared force was not being disbanded.

The morality police report to the interior ministry and is supervised by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The force formed in 2005 has disappeared from the streets since Amini’s death.

Montazeri also referred to a possible relaxation in the dress code for women that parliament would debate and would be announced in about two weeks.

The dress code for women was made mandatory in Iran in 1983.

Music, alcohol, nightclubs, gambling, mixed sports, and sex outside marriage are not allowed in the Islamic republic.

Iran has also established gender segregation restrictions in certain areas to stop men and women from working in the same places.

The curbs are harsher for women, who have to cover themselves in veils.

Women who do not wear headscarves are “naked,” said Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic revolution that brought seismic changes to Iran. EFE